Manual Fix a problem
It answers me instead of typing what I said
You dictated a sentence and got a reply, a rewrite, or an answer to your question — here's which feature did it.
You dictated "what time is the meeting tomorrow" and instead of those words appearing, you got an answer. Or you dictated a paragraph and what landed was a tidied-up rewrite of it rather than what you actually said.
Three different features can process your speech, and each one has its own switch. Working out which one is running takes a minute.
1. The voice agent
Neato Echo has a voice agent: say its name and the rest of what you say is treated as an instruction to carry out, not words to type. The app's own description is "When you say 'Hey [agent name]' followed by an instruction, the AI executes your command — composing content, formatting text, or answering questions — instead of transcribing."
So a dictation that begins with the agent's name is routed to the agent. The default name is Assistant; if you've renamed it to something ordinary, you can trigger it by accident just by saying that word.
Where to check: Settings → Language Models under AI Models, then the Voice Agent tab. Enable voice agent turns it off entirely, and Agent Name is the word that triggers it.
2. The Voice Agent hotkey
There's a separate hotkey for the agent, described in the app as "Speak a request — your AI agent types the result, not your words." It has no default, so it only exists if you set one.
If you used that shortcut instead of your dictation shortcut, you'll get an answer every time. Turning off Enable voice agent disables this hotkey too — they're the same feature — so if you've done that and still get answers, the cause is something else on this page, not the toggle.
Where to check: Settings → Hotkeys under App. Compare Dictation Hotkey with Voice Agent Hotkey and make sure they're not similar enough to hit the wrong one.
3. Dictation cleanup
Separately from the agent, Neato Echo can run your transcription through the local language model to tidy it — punctuation, filler words, obvious mis-hearings. This is Dictation Cleanup, and it's what makes text come out polished rather than verbatim.
It's off by default in Neato Echo, so if your words are coming back reworded, someone switched it on. Cleanup shouldn't answer questions, but it is the reason your words can come back reworded, and if you want the raw transcription this is the switch.
Where to check: Settings → Language Models under AI Models, then the Dictation Cleanup tab.
If you turned the agent off and it still happens
That's worth telling us about, and it's the version of this we most want to see. Check in this order:
Confirm which hotkey you pressed
Turning off Enable voice agent disables the Voice Agent hotkey too, so if you're still getting answers with the toggle off, double-check you pressed the dictation hotkey and not the agent one.
Compare the raw transcript
If the raw transcript is your actual words and the final text is an answer, something after transcription rewrote it. If the raw transcript is already an answer, the request went to the agent.
Check any custom prompt
Agent-name detection itself runs directly against your transcript, before any prompt is involved — see how naming it works. The placeholder warning in Prompt Studio is about something else: a custom agent or cleanup prompt that drops the agent-name placeholder can still behave unpredictably once the agent is triggered, so keep it if you've edited that prompt.
Send us a debug log
It records which path the request took. That turns this from guesswork into a single answer — see how to send one.
FAQ
I want verbatim text, with no AI at all.
Turn off Dictation Cleanup and Enable voice agent, both under Settings → Language Models under AI Models. Transcription then gives you what you said.
Does the agent need an internet connection?
No. By default the voice agent runs on the local language model you downloaded in Settings → Language Models (Qwen 3.5 4B is the recommended one). If you've added a key under Cloud Providers, you can point it at that provider instead; the choice is on the Voice Agent tab.
Why does it happen only sometimes?
Because the trigger is what you said. A dictation that happens to start with the agent's name is routed to the agent; one that doesn't, isn't.
Related
Still need help?
Write to [email protected] with your Windows version, your Neato Echo version (Settings → System), and what you were doing. A person reads every message.